They still came on Sundays. That was the thing about Allen—he understood that power was a habit, and habits required ritual. The new Director, John McCone, had the title. Allen had the church.
The house on Q Street was old Washington: Federal brick, black shutters, a garden where Clover grew roses she never touched. Allen received visitors in the study. Oak paneling. First editions. A Matisse sketch he'd liberated from a Nazi vault in '45—provenance deliberately unclear.
The fire was lit by 10 AM. The first guest arrived at 10:15.
James Jesus Angleton was thinner than last month. The man survived on orchids, paranoia, and Virginia Slims. He ran counterintelligence like a medieval inquisition—everyone was a mole until proven otherwise, and proof was impossible. Even Allen found him unnerving, which was precisely why he was valuable.
The doorbell. Richard Helms entered with the Sunday Times under his arm and a face that revealed nothing. Helms was Operations—the man who made things happen in places that didn't officially exist. He was already positioning himself for the long game. Allen respected that.
The third man arrived late, as always. William King Harvey was drunk by noon on weekdays; Sundays he started earlier. He carried a pearl-handled revolver everywhere, including the Director's dining room. He had killed men in Berlin. He was currently running ZR-RIFLE—the program that didn't exist, targeting the leader who couldn't be named.
Chief, Staff D (Communications Intelligence)
Project Lead: ZR-RIFLE (Executive Action capability)
Assessment: Brilliant. Alcoholic. Uncontrollable.
Note: "The man the Agency calls when it needs something done that the Agency cannot know about." — Helms memo, 1960
Clover brought coffee and disappeared. She had learned decades ago that Sunday mornings were for the men who couldn't be introduced at parties.
Helms crossed his legs. Said nothing. He was cataloging the conversation for later use—against whom, even he hadn't decided.
The fire crackled. Outside, a light snow was beginning to fall on Georgetown, on the black sedans parked along Q Street, on the city that believed itself to be the center of the free world.
Allen paused to light his pipe. The old ritual. The men waited.
Harvey poured himself a third whiskey. Angleton was staring at a point six inches in front of his face, seeing penetration agents in the wallpaper.
The question hung in the tobacco smoke. Allen regarded the fire.
The meeting adjourned at 1:30. No notes were taken. No decisions were recorded. The men returned to their cars, their offices, their compartmented lives.
Allen stood at the window and watched them go. The snow was sticking now. Two years. Maybe less. The boy in the White House was making noise about Vietnam, about détente, about ending the oil depletion allowance. He was talking to Khrushchev through back channels. He was learning the wrong lessons from Cuba.
The phone rang. Allen let it ring.
In the fireplace, the logs collapsed into embers. In Dallas, a young man named Lee Harvey Oswald was reading Marx in a rooming house, unaware that he was already a character in someone else's story.
And in the study on Q Street, the old spymaster—retired, powerless, forgotten by the newspapers—smiled at something only he could see.
Patience, the smile said. The work is patient. The work endures.
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